Born of Nightmares
by Lord Siravant
Summary: "We were born of nightmares..." The history of the King of Nightmares is long and bloody. Hear now, in its own words, a brief retelling of its origins and how its actions affected the history of Hyrule. From the moment it was spawned at the hands of Majora to the moment it sired an heir that would alter the fate of Hyrule itself. Equestrian Wind Mage Vaati/Dethl origin story.


We were born of nightmares.

So we were told at the moment of our creation, when our lord Majora crafted us from His darkness. All the things mortals feared, be it death or loneliness or some other primal terror, were given form and purpose, and we became the vessel for that power. Our body He plucked from His own shadow, formless and malleable, and thus we could assume any form we desired, as dark as darkness and fueled by the light-dwellers' many terrors.

Fear was our weapon, and our purpose.

Nightmare, they called us.

Our name is Dethl.

So many fears made manifest, all collected in one body, waiting to be released upon the light-dwellers' dreams. That is why we are one, yet many.

Newly begotten, we were risen to the surface of Lord Majora's dark realm, and there He named us King. Dreams were our domain, terror our rule of law. God of Fear, He called us.

But we saw then that there were other Kings. We were not alone, for the Dark One's purposes could not be served by one son of darkness alone.

We were His final creation, and the others had been kept waiting.

We hated each other from the moment we all locked eyes, even as our great Father gave to us our names so that we may know them.

Malladus was shapeless much like us, preferring to inhabit a vessel rather than take form himself. Our Lord called him King of Spirits, God of Phantoms, and he looked like a skull made of blue mist, and he spoke little.

Bellum was the next. Hunger was evident in all its eyes, from the eyes peeking out from the ends of its six black, thin appendages to the eye growing out of its fanged maw. God of Hunger was he, and our Lord gave him power over the seas so that he would drain all life from the oceans of Nayru. A hunger that could not be sated till the last light-dweller faded from the Goddesses' embrace.

Iemanis was great in size, built like an enormous centipede clad in white exoskeleton with a single eye and two huge claws. He was given the title of King of Spiders, God of Pestilence. He would sire a race of his own to serve our Lord's needs, for they were soon to be great.

Then there was black-robed Gomess, enshrouded in clouds of wicked bats and carrying a great scythe. Our Lord called her Queen of the Dead, and Goddess of Decay. The dead would rise to serve her will, the lifeless husks of the mortals bereft of the Goddesses' light and now filled with darkness.

And then we saw _him_.

His arrogance burned as hot as the flames of his hair. His sense of self-superiority as ironclad as the black scales that adorned his body, tipped with an iridescent red. He was built like the light-dwellers, with two arms and two legs, hands with five fingers and feet with five toes, yet he was far greater than any human. He carried himself with an air that spoke of his dominance over us all. We could all sense his power. And in that moment, we knew that our dislike for each other would never compare to our collective hatred towards him.

Demise was his name, and our Lord named him High King, and God of Wrath. He was to rule over us all. Why? What right had he to lord over us? Were not Kings answerable to no other save the higher power that granted our divine right to govern?

But Lord Majora decreed this was the way it would be, and we knew not to think any further on our enmity. We had more important things to turn our attention to. The war between light and dark was due to begin.

Before the moment of our ascension, however, our Lord granted each of us a vassal, to lead our individual armies and answer our personal needs. Ours was a skull-faced cretin called the Grim Creeper, and he rode upon a great and terrible white and red eagle, an ugly mockery of the light-dwellers' Loftwings.

Demise was given a mewling twit who looked far too human for our tastes, a wretch who called himself Ghirahim, and his pompous flair was irksome.

Bellum was given four, who called themselves the Cubus Sisters and promised Bellum a ship that could serve its needs and draw in more prey.

Malladus was granted a sniveling little creature who called himself Cole, far too cowardly to ever be useful in war, though he possessed some competence in strategy and statesmanship. He too looked much like a light-dweller save for his two horns and black eyes.

Gomess was given a servant called the Dark Dragon, a beast who could transform from dragon to human at will, and his touch could drain the life from all living things around him. Onox was his name, but Gomess seemed to pay him little heed.

It seemed that Majora selected a vassal of His own, another demon in the shape of a light-dweller, and He called her Veran. She was to go among the mortals and beguile them, and seduce them. She was to gradually turn the light-dwellers against their own Goddesses and shackle them to our Lord's dominion.

Iemanis took no vassal, for he preferred to create his own, twisting the insectoid creatures of the world into something new and dark. These abominations became known as the first Gohma.

And so we gathered our armies. Our Shadow Nightmares flocked to our banner. Iemanis's Gohma swarmed about him, subservient to his mind and will. Gomess stood ready to unleash her powers of necromancy upon the mortal dead. Our Lord's spawn crowded around us all, and it was an army that would surely drown the world in darkness.

Our time had come.

XXXXXX

How well we remember the moment when Demise opened the Breach.

The light of the Sun stung our dark and terrible faces, but we faltered not, for our Lord was at our backs, and by His grace we weathered the hated light.

The light-dwellers never saw us coming. They could only scream in fear and scatter to the winds like frightened cattle as we legions of the dark set upon them. The wrath and ruin of war was loosed upon these weakling followers of the Goddesses. Bellum hounded them at sea, devouring soul after soul and turning the husks into unstoppable Phantoms to aid the battle on land. The countless slain rose at Gomess's command, and the terror that went before this army of the dead fueled our power as we poisoned their dreams and filled them with fear and doubt. We drove so many to madness that they either died of fright or tore the flesh from their own bones. Either way they were driven into Gomess's fold, and thus we established a mutually-beneficial partnership, for there were few things light-dwellers feared more than death. The Gohma of Iemanis devoured all in their path, and they used the energy to breed in such numbers that they soon almost rivaled Gomess's undead legions.

But Demise always seemed to take credit for all our glory. All our work, all our conquests, and he claimed that all of it fell into _his_ plan. As if we couldn't manage our legions without him, the arrogant fool. If only we could become High King, we could show him his proper place…

But that black throne, which granted the rightful occupant immeasurable power and a supreme right, would only permit Demise to sit upon it. And we all knew we could not afford to succumb to infighting. Not yet.

But it seemed Demise had a plan of his own, and that was when we learned of the Goddesses' greatest secret.

The Triforce.

Demise proclaimed that its capture would solidify the demon tribe's rule over the World of Light, but we knew better. Demise had become _too_ arrogant. He sought the Triforce for himself, to elevate himself even above our dark master.

We spoke to our Lord of this "Triforce", and asked for His guidance.

When His answer was that it must be destroyed, to cut off the Goddesses' influence from their world, we knew then that Demise had turned traitor in his heart.

But we never got the chance to act upon this knowledge.

The light-dwellers had appealed ceaselessly to the heavens for deliverance, and just when it seemed victory would be ours, it came to them. A heavenly host of divine warriors descended from the sky to rally the people against the darkness. There were four great flying whales, and two floating frogs. There too were four Spirits of Light, and an army of silent men of metal. Leading this host were two whom the light-dwellers called Hylia, the Goddess of Peace, and Onigami, the God of War.

The light-dwellers rallied around this new foe, and now came the true battle.

A battle we soon realized we were losing.

Lord Majora came forth Himself and faced the leaders of this meddlesome host, and we knew that victory was ours.

Only it wasn't.

We all watched our Lord, the great god of all that is dark and evil, **_fall_**.

Though the so-called God of War seemingly succumbed to injuries of his own in the process, the Goddess of Peace bound Lord Majora in chains, and with the aid of the Golden Goddesses He was imprisoned deep within our own Pyramid of Power, and locked within a seal we could not break.

At that moment, we knew for ourselves what fear felt like. For a short while, we backed off and reconsidered our options.

But Demise, in his arrogance, doggedly pursued his goal of acquiring the Triforce, and we had no choice now but to follow him in his traitorous mission, for we learned that, with our Lord no longer able to assert dominance, we could not truly disobey the High Demon King. We were magically bound to follow his leadership. And so we regrouped and launched another assault some years later by Hyrulean reckoning.

Demise personally challenged the Goddess Hylia, for she knew where the Triforce was kept. Yet our efforts were for naught, as the Goddess prevailed. Demise, being the sore loser that he was, unleashed terrible curses in his last moments. He had foolishly demanded the hand of the Goddess of Power herself, and when she came down and laughed in his face, he had sworn to make her regret it. And so he cast a powerful binding curse upon most of the races that the Goddess of Power favored, forcibly turning them against the light forever. And then he was imprisoned, while the Goddess of Peace sent all the surviving humans into the sky on a floating island, taking the Triforce with them.

Everything had gone wrong from the moment those two gods arrived to meddle in our efforts. With both Lord Majora _and_ Demise gone, it just was not worth it anymore. Humbled and humiliated, we demons fled the World of Light and closed the Breach.

And for centuries afterward we pondered and waited, wondering what to do.

It would be many centuries before purpose finally reentered our lives, and not in a good way.

XXXXXX

Because Demise had been sealed, not killed, the throne that sat within the Palace of Darkness still technically answered to the High King. But because the High King was sealed, and none of us were either capable or inclined to help free him, there was little we could do until our Lord found some way to reestablish communication with us.

And then, one day it all changed.

Demise's retainer returned to the Dark World, flustered and horrified, after being gone for countless centuries. Truthfully we had all assumed him to be dead. But no, he had remained in the Light World hoping to find a way to release Demise.

And he had succeeded.

Only for the troublesome fool to get himself killed by some trifling mortal with a magic sword.

Then the full reality of it hit us all.

Demise was _dead_.

Which meant the throne was unoccupied.

All that power, all that prestige…it could now be _ours_.

But, as we expected, we were not the only one to come to that conclusion. Malladus and Bellum both got it in their proverbial heads that they too had the potential to sit on that throne.

There could only be one result of this power vacuum.

The Dark World fell into civil war.

XXXXXX

To win a war, one needed allies. And allies were hard to come by in the Dark World. Demons are not the weak-minded, altruistic idiots the light-dwellers tended to be. We were mostly out for ourselves, save for the will of Majora. We didn't help one another for nothing unless our Lord commanded it.

Diplomacy proved a challenging skill to learn.

Our first recruit was Demise's wayward lackey. Ever since he had watched his foolish master die right in front of him, the hopeless imbecile had wandered the halls of the Dark Palace without guidance or direction. We loathed the idea of it, but Ghirahim still could have his uses, especially since the Grim Creeper and his useless pigeon had been slain during the Demon Wars. We told him we could give him purpose again. He was without a master. We were without a servant. He was easy to sway.

There was one other whom we were…interested in. When we confronted Gomess, to our surprise she declared she had no desire for the throne, and thus, after some discussion, the Lich Queen admitted we were preferable to Malladus or Bellum as Demise's successor, and declared her support of us, and in doing so indirectly gained another ally in the dark dragon Onox. Iemanis apparently had no interest in the throne either, so focused was he on perfecting his Gohma, though he declared he would support whoever won the throne without complaint, but would remain neutral in the conflict. Not an ally, but no friend to our foes either. It was the best we would get from him.

Our last bargain was with Veran and her Church. It had become known that she had discovered a way to communicate with our Lord once more. If the Church of Majora could legitimize us as Demise's heir, it could either halt the war or at least make it easier for us to win.

But our Lord was not so forthcoming.

He was displeased that His servants were fighting amongst themselves for the throne instead of remaining unified after Demise's death. But we pleaded our case. There was every chance Bellum or Malladus would turn traitor and seek the blasted Triforce for themselves, rather than destroy it as He had ordered. We were loyal. To be the undisputed Demon King was power enough. We wanted to fulfill His dark work, not seek power just for ourselves.

Veran then told us that both Malladus and Bellum had come there, saying the same thing. None of us had convinced our Lord of our sincerity. To prove ourselves in His eyes, we had to win this war, and then return to the Church for further instruction. Even if we defeated the others, we would not ascend without His blessing.

It turned out afterward that our job had inadvertently become easier. While we were at the Church, Malladus and Bellum had engaged one another near the Misery Mire, and Malladus had found a way to usurp Bellum's control over his Phantoms and turned them against their creator, and thus Bellum and the Cubus Sisters were eliminated.

We could certainly handle Malladus.

And so we goaded Malladus into facing us at Turtle Rock. Malladus, for his part, was smart enough to realize the potential for a trap, but the fool was simply not as clever as we were. Gomess engaged first, with Onox and Ghirahim beside her, keeping the Phantoms busy with her undead while we prepared our trap. It was then that we unleashed a horde of Shadow Nightmares, which inhabited the bodies of the Phantoms and stopped their movement. The goal was not to destroy the Phantoms, though; they were one of the few creations of ours that had managed to hold their own against the bodyguards of Hylia. They were too valuable to destroy. All we had to do was distract Malladus.

The floating skull was so focused on trying to regain dominance over the Phantoms that he did not see us coming till it was too late. Becoming as formless as he, we fell upon him with wrath and hate, and we fought as two swirling clouds of black and blue trying to choke one another. Little by little we gained the upper hand, and we pulled apart his essence atom by atom until our ebony mist dissolved his cerulean miasma for good. His cowardly retainer threw himself at our feet and begged for mercy. Because our victory had left us in a good mood, we obliged the spineless coward.

With our enemies destroyed, we returned to the Church of Majora, awaiting the chance to prove our loyalty to the Master's cause. And so Veran revealed the existence of the Mask.

Our Lord had left it behind to ensure that He would never be gone from the world. And through it, we spoke once more. Our Lord is one who values the truth, especially when it can be used to hurt others, and thus one could not lie to Him in His presence. We vowed to throw down the people of the Goddesses, and destroy their precious Triforce. And more importantly, we promised we would find a way to break the Dark God out of His prison.

With that, Lord Majora gave His blessing, and we sat upon the Throne of the Dark World at last as its rightful ruler.

And the _power_ it granted us as a result!

We could now travel between the dreaming and waking worlds at will. We could create far more Shadow Nightmares without ill effects than before, and our power over dreams were increased ten-fold. Even lesser gods could fall victim to our enforced slumber.

But we were not meant to sit idly upon this throne. There was work to be done.

We would revive the ancient conquest.

We would invade Hyrule once more.

XXXXXX

Demise had, admittedly, done a good thing when he cursed the so-called "monster races".

We demons could summon them at will, and they had no choice but to obey us without question. Thus we summoned a vast host of these beasts, and with a number of demons alongside, we unleashed our wrath upon the World of Light once more.

Yet again they were caught off-guard, and we swept through their forces with such ease it almost wasn't fun.

But alas, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Just when it looked like we would prevail, those damnable Goddesses intervened _again_. A race of tiny creatures descended from the heavens, calling themselves the Picori, and they brought with them a magic sword that glinted with a hideous white light.

Damn the Picori.

Damn them to the deepest pit of Majora for their interference.

The sword was given to a so-called "Hero of Men", which he used to turn the tables on the forces of darkness. We could only watch as he slaughtered our mightiest beasts with insulting ease. Even Iemanis's newly-bred Armogohmas were not enough to crush this loathsome human. Those of our minions that were not destroyed were imprisoned within a magical chest.

Damn the light-dwellers.

Damn the Goddesses.

 _Damn the Picori_.

Oh, how the desire for vengeance _burned_ in our heart for those wretched mouse-folk. They had ruined everything, just like the host of the Goddesses had so many centuries before. They would **_pay_** for this.

But we were patient. We had one thing Demise never had; the capacity to think ahead for the long-term. Eight hundred years we waited, allowing our conquest to fade into legend, until the War of the Bound Chest was but a distant memory in the minds of Hylian and Picori alike.

It was time to plant the seeds of our master's return.

But most of all, it was time to plant the seeds of our revenge.

XXXXXX

The first thing we did upon returning to Hyrule in secret was finding some…open-minded individuals who could be swayed by the promises of Majora. We slunk across all the darkest corners of Hyrule, from its seediest bars to the ivory towers of corrupt, greedy nobles and politicians. And together we formed in secret the branch of Majora's Church that would exist in Hyrule and spread His message across Hyrule that would expose the lies of their idols.

With that matter settled, our attention turned towards the Picori.

But we did not wish to simply wipe them out and be done with it. Unlike Demise, we preferred subtlety. We wanted them to regret ever falling out of the sky and helping the pathetic, mewling light-dwellers, to be shamed and humiliated so thoroughly they would never dare show their faces again to the Hylians, even in their darkest hour.

We found one of their settlements hidden deep within the Lost Woods, so small and disgustingly inviting. We bided our time until the right moment came along. A female Picori strode down the gravel road, the tiny rocks like cobblestones to them, humming some pointless tune to herself.

 _Music_. We hated it from the moment we heard the first plucked strings of Hylia's harp.

We slipped unnoticed into her shadow as she blissfully returned to her residence, a house built into a moldy old shoe. As the sun fell, we blended into the shadows of her unsuspecting home as she busied herself with the trivial affairs mortals of all walks of life seem keen to partake in. Soon, however, she grew tired and headed for her bedroom in the loft nestled inside the top of the shoe, over which a makeshift roof made from woven fibers lay to keep out the elements.

She wrapped herself up in a large leaf and quickly fell asleep, with a little help from us. And thus we entered her dreams and made ourselves known.

Ah, how well we remember the exchange.

She looked around at her surroundings, her rodent eyes wide with delicious fear.

"W-where am I?"

" _In a place where dreams become reality_."

She quickly turned around at our voice, but at the moment we were hidden from her in the featureless void.

"What? What are you talking about? W-who _are_ you?"

" _You have been chosen, Mikiila of the Picori, to receive a gift, from our people to yours_."

"A-a gift?"

" _To repay you for your people's role in the War of the Bound Chest_."

"Huh? B-but that was over eight hundred years ago!"

" _A blink of an eye for those such as we. Now, accept our gift_."

She was still looking around, thinking she would eventually see us there.

"W-what is this gift?"

" _A legacy. A child who will decide the fate of your people for all time_."

To our amusement, her fear-ridden face became clouded with indignancy. "W- _what_?! I-I'm not even married yet!"

" _Come forth, little one. Come and look upon the face of_ _ **the father of your child**_!"

She turned towards us and screamed as our visage revealed itself.

And then we seeded her. She thrashed and screamed in her bed as our essence coiled into hers. It was the closest thing to what the mortals called "Sex" a demon of our caliber would ever participate in, and we did not perform the act for the pleasure that light-dwellers supposedly gained from it. It served a purpose. It gave us a suitable form of vengeance.

And better than that, it would give us an heir.

Soon we finished, and slipped back into the shadows as she catapulted awake, released from the throes of her night terror as well-meaning fools banged on her door asking if she needed help. We needed not stay any longer.

And so we returned to the Dark World, content in our vengeance.

But we would soon return.

We wanted to be there when our son was born.

XXXXXX

We did not have to wait long.

The gestation period for the Picori was brief, just like the rodents they are. We watched from the shadows as the Picori who called herself Mikiila endured the curious, and sometimes disapproving, stares of her brethren as her girth continued to swell with the inevitable pregnancy. She never spoke of how she came to be such, likely to save face amongst them. For all those months, we watched with glee how she would rub her ruddy little paws over her little belly, an uncertain look in her eyes. She couldn't decide whether to love or hate our little gift.

And then the day came. She rushed to her village's maternity ward, and we watched from the shadows as two midwives aided in the delivery of our heir.

We could barely restrain our laughter as the mewling babe appeared, and the midwife that saw him first cried out, "D-demonspawn!"

The two fools scurried fearfully out of the room, leaving the wailing child in Mikiila's exhausted lap.

With the three of us alone, we appeared once more, looming over our child and its mother. She blinked open her eyes and saw us. There was death in her eyes; she was not long for this world. How convenient.

To our surprise, at the sight of us she drew that screaming runt close to her breast, as if to _protect_ it.

"Stay away from me, demon," she rasped.

" _Oh come now, little one_ ," said we. " _What love could there be for the child who is fated to ruin your kind forever_?"

"You will _not_ take my child," she spoke.

" _And what could you do to stop us were that our intention_?" we answered with a laugh. " _Even now the light slowly fades from your eyes. The strength in your body is failing. You will die shortly_."

Delicious fear glittered in her eyes, but it was gone far too quickly for our liking.

" _You should hate this creature you have spawned_ ," we said. " _Look how unnatural he is_!"

And indeed the babe did look different from other Picori. He was pale, far paler than the normal Picori skin tone. His small tuft of hair was lavender rather than the natural earthen hues of his race.

And his most damning feature, which we knew would condemn him, were his eyes.

They were red like blood.

" _He will be ostracized and hated for the demon-spawn he is_ ," we gloated, just to rub salt in the wound, as the light-dwellers say. " _He will never know happiness or friendship. He will never know love_."

To our surprise, she looked down at the crying whelp and stroked his cheek, which seemed to calm him considerably. "H-he knows _mine_. Oh, my son, m-my beautiful boy…"

 _What_?

A tear fell down her face as she looked at that pest with…with such… ** _love_** , it was disgusting and baffling all at once. "How I wish I could give you all the love…i-in the world…"

How truly pathetic and nauseating.

" _He will not remember your love. It will be eclipsed by the world's hate. And he will learn to hate the world in turn. And then his dark power will awaken. He will rise as a demon of violence and hatred that will snuff out the light of the Picori forever! He will make a fine heir for our legacy_!"

She didn't even look up from the runt. "Y-you're w-wrong."

Wrong? Such idealistic impudence. Who did she think she was?

" _Wrong, are we_?"

But still she did not look up. All that seemed to matter was her spawn. "He may not r-remember m-me…but y-you're wrong."

It was clear to us that her life was fading, and yet there was still blind, idealistic conviction in her voice. "H-he may grow up…feared…a-and misunderstood…he m-may even l-lash out a-at the w-world…b-but _I will always love him_ …a-and t-though he…may s-stumble…make terrible m-m-mistakes…o-one d-day…he _will_ k-know happiness…h-h-he _will_ know love…" She even had the audacity to kiss that creature's forehead. "A m-mother's p-promise…to her s-son…oh Vaati, m-my baby boy…I p-promise…one day…y-you won't b-b-be…alone…a-anymore…"

She was at her final breath, but we heard voices coming, likely the midwives bringing along the doctor. Now was the time to go. We sunk back into the shadows as the midwives and their doctor entered the room, just in time to hear that wretch Mikiila's final words.

"M-my son…my…Vaati…"

And then she died. It certainly took her long enough. As if sensing how alone he truly was now, our "son" began to cry once more, causing one of the midwives to shrink back.

"W-we should leave it in the forest!" she whimpered pathetically. "This demon child will only bring misfortune upon us all!"

The Picori doctor shook his head. "No…whether or not he is…different…I cannot condone the murder of an innocent child. Mikiila declared with her final breath he would be named Vaati. The least we can do is honor her wish and see that he is provided for."

Laughing quietly, we departed, for there was no more reason to stay.

Our child would only know hardship, and see the light of these vermin for the farce it was, and then he would rise as a worthy Demon Prince in his own right. The name she gave him was strangely fitting. It was a name the World of Light would certainly remember.

" _Good luck…Vaati. Gwoh hoh hoh hoh hoh_ …"

 **XXXXXX000XXXXXX**

 **In case you hadn't guessed, this is indeed Vaati and Dethl's origins for Equestrian Wind Mage, but given that Equestria is not involved at this point, this is not a crossover. Next update will probably be Link and the Teufort Nine, as I recently began work on the next chapter. Go me.**


End file.
